


Beyond The Sea

by Sir_Bedevere



Series: Walk Beside Me (Thorin's Songs) [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 03:18:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Where do elves go when they die?'</p><p>The death of Kili's new friend leads to questions that Thorin really would rather not answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond The Sea

He knew it had been a bad idea to let the boy have a pup. 

Kili had saved the animal, a pathetic little scrap of a thing, from drowning in a water barrel that was hidden behind a pub in a village in the Blue Mountains. Kili was often out roaming these days, now that Fili’s training with Dwalin had started in earnest. The dog had brothers and sisters who were already dead, weighed down in a sack with a heavy rock, but Kili had wrapped the runt of the litter in his scarf and rubbed life back into it. It was whining, weakly but steadily, when Kili came running into the forge where Thorin was working.

“Uncle Thorin, I saved it!”

“Saved what, lad?”

“A pup! It was drowning but I saved it.”

Thorin put down his hammer and took the little thing in his hands. Kili looked up at him, proud of himself, and Thorin stroked the pup’s head with one finger. It had red fur, a rusty red, and it hadn’t even opened its eyes yet, it was so young. Thorin did not approve of the killing of such helpless things. Men had very little honour, it would seem. Very little indeed.

“Can I keep it?” Kili asked, jumping up and down, “Please can I keep it?”  
Thorin turned it over and smiled.

“It’s a he, Kili. A boy. Ask your mother if you want to keep him. I do not mind.”

Dís said yes, of course. It was a rare thing that Kili found something he could concentrate on for more than a few hours, but he was quite taken with the dog. He called it Baraz, because of the colour of the dog’s fur, and he spent long hours playing with it. 

“It’s good for him,” Dís said, “Now Fili is in training, he has another friend to play with.”

“I thought that he had friends,” Thorin grumbled, “His cousins…Gimli and-”

“And he does play with them,” Dís said gently, “But it gives him something to do. It gives him a purpose. It is a good dog, he’s training it well. It doesn’t worry me.”

And it was all very well, until the hot summer’s day when Kili came running into the forge once more, dripping wet, with tears running down his face. He threw himself into Thorin’s arms and sobbed into his shoulder.

“What happened, lad?”

“Baraz…we were hot so we decided to go swimming in the river and – and – ”

“What?”

“He got swept away, Uncle Thorin. And then he hit a rock and he went under the water and I didn’t see him again. I looked for him but I couldn’t find him.”

“You were in the river?” Thorin grumbled, holding Kili at arm’s length, “What have I told you about that? It’s dangerous, Kili!”

His outburst didn’t help. Kili’s dark eyes widened and he just began to sob anew. Sighing, Thorin pulled him into his arms again and stroked his hair soothingly. 

“I’m sorry about Baraz. He was a good dog.”

It was only a few days later, when Kili had got over the shock, that the questions started. 

He was an inquisitive child, one who could never know enough, and so began the incessant questions about death and dying. It made sense of course; Baraz’s was the first death he had ever encountered. He hadn’t been old enough to notice when his father died. 

Thorin tried to bear his questions with patience, referring him to Balin when he and Dís were too busy to talk to him. Eventually, three nights after the death of the dog, the question came that Thorin did not care to answer.

“Where do elves go when they die?”

Thorin was sat in his armchair by the fire, Kili curled up on the rug watching the flames. Dís and Fili were out at Balin’s, so that Fili could use some of their cousin’s books for his history learning. There was no one else; Thorin couldn’t dodge this question. He’d have to answer it himself, however distasteful he found the subject matter. 

“Elves do not die,” Thorin growled, “One day they will cross the sea into the West and live forever in the lands beyond.”

“Oh,” Kili frowned, tracing the patterns in the rug with one finger, “Why do only elves go? Why not everybody?”

“I do not know,” Thorin said bitterly, “You would have to ask an elf.”

“But we go to the Hall of Mahal? Dwarves do?”

“It is said,” Thorin growled, the same ground they had already covered that day being covered once more, “And it is just as Balin told you; the great kings will one day return from there and take their thrones once more and all the dwarves shall help Mahal to rebuild Arda. He needs us. We are his craftsmen.”

There was silence for a few minutes, as Kili processed what had been said. He was so young, too young really to be asking these questions and too young to understand the answers, but Balin always said that questions were the only real way to ever really learn anything. It was what made him so good a diplomat, an ability to recognise his own ignorance, whereas Thorin was such a bad one because of his inability to do the same. If Kili was asking questions, all that showed was that he might grow up to be a better man than his uncle, at least in that respect.

“I think I’d rather die and go to Mahal than live forever,” Kili announced decisively, breaking the silence. He crawled onto his uncle’s lap and took one of his braids in his small hand, tugging it gently.

“Would you?” Thorin smiled wryly, wrapping an arm around the boy’s back, and the other hand around the hand on his braid, “And why is that?”

“So that one day I can be there when you take your throne again, of course,” he said, shaking his head as though it was the most obvious thing he had ever said, “As all the other great kings will do too.”

Thorin swallowed hard and rested his cheek on the top of his nephew’s head. Kili made a small satisfied noise and settled into his uncle’s chest, completely and utterly unaware of what he had said. 

“Maybe Fili will be one of the great kings too!” Kili exclaimed, as though the thought had only just occurred to him, “And I can help you both to rule again. Mama says that is what I will do, when you and Fili are kings. I can’t wait until I am grown-up.”

“Maybe you will,” Thorin murmured, unable to do anything but think, at that moment, that as good a king as Fili would be one day, it would also be such a great loss to his people that Kili of the line of Durin would only ever be his brother’s right hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I extrapolated that 'Baraz' means 'red' in Khuzdul...if I'm wrong, let me know!


End file.
